You may remember our posts on the sad plight of iRobot, who had accused their ex-employee, Jameel Ahed, of stealing their design, only to have the US Military award a whopping $280 million dollar contract to said ex-employee, and rejecting iRobot. Oh the injustice!

Weep no more, fellow shareholders and Roomba lovers, because justice has been served! Unfortunately, the price of that justice was a cool $2.9million dollars. But, nobody said good ol’ Lex Rex came cheap.

In addition to the judges in both lawsuits rulling in favor of iRobot - one ruling that Robotic FX had infringed iRobot’s patent, and the other ruling that, Robotic FX stole proprietary information - Robotic FX will now be dissolved and its assets given to iRobot as payment.



In response to the news, the US DoD awarded iRobot the $280 million dollar contract that was previously awarded to Robotic FX. While iRobot’s stock price has a long way to go from the $24 high it was before all of these events transpired, the future is looking much brighter.



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Robotic FX manufactures a tactical robot for military operations. It can be equipped for hazmat and EOD operations. The Negotiator and its bigger brother, the Negotiator 6X, are water resistant, can climb stairs, and weigh around 20lbs and 46lbs, respectively. Robotic FX has also recently won a $280 million USD contract with the US Army to ship 3,000 robots to the Middle East for Army operations.

There’s one slight problem though - iRobot is accusing Robotic FX of stealing designs for iRobot’s PackBot system, and of patent infringement. Not only did Robotic FX’s president, Jameel Ahed, formerly work at iRobot and access to technical information on the PackBot, but its hard to deny the amazing similarites between the two designs - especially manipulator arm and the patented front “flipper” design of the PackBot.

According to Defense News,

And just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, according to this Boston Globe article, “iRobot’s suit alleges that one day after his resignation [from iRobot in June 2002], Ahed used his
still-active iRobot e-mail account to send confidential iRobot files to
a Robotic FX address.”

Also,

The suit also alleges that a court-ordered search of Hill’s aparement revealed a laptop, owned by Ahed, concealed under her bed running an eraser program - unfortunately, the program had done its job before the police were able to locate it.

All this said, I wonder if Robotic FX will have their hands full dealing with a major lawsuit and delivering 3,000 robots to the US Army.

Looks like Robotic FX may need one heck of a “negotiator” to get out of this one. May justice be done.

More info at Xconomy and Robot Stock News.

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In what was a stunning blow to iRobot and its investors, the US Army rejected the company in a high-stakes big for a large order of bomb-detection and tactical robots (Forbes story here). iRobot, the favorite to win the bidding, offered its PackBot robots as the product of choice to meet the demand for 3,000 robots the military issued on July 17th.

Instead, the winner was Robotic FX of Alsip, IL - a company that iRobot is currently suing for patent infringement and theft of proprietary designs (more on this in later posts). And while, "iRobot …  has delivered more than 1,000 IED and cave-clearing, remote-controlled PackBots to the Army and Marine Corps since 2002", it’s not entirely clear why the Army chose Robotic FX’s systems over iRobot’s. The best guess seems to revolve around price. According to Thorn at Robot Stock News, "The contract appears to be about $93,000 per robot, while iRobot’s PackBots have generally been in the $120K-$150K range."

Jameel Ahed, the president of Robotic FX, said, "This procurement was competed on a two-step technically acceptable, low price basis and we are very excited to have won. We look forward to producing our high-quality, easy-to-operate robots for our soldiers.”

Joe Dyer, head of iRobots government division is quoted as saying, 
The Army has since then issued a statement in Robotic FX’s defense, citing the possibility of putting soliders in harm’s way if Robotic FX is prevented (by the courts) from meeting the contract.

You can find more detailed coverage of iRobots loss and the unfolding lawsuit at Robot Stock News.